Page 74 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

“I’m sorry, Van.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry about. He probably would have gotten away with it if the woman he was screwing didn’t show up at the funeral.”

“That’s nasty,” she said.

“She wasn’t there for the services. She was there to support my father. I went outside to get some air and saw him talking to her, then saw him hug and kiss her.”

Her jaw dropped. “Before the services and then you had to go back in and pretend it didn’t happen?”

“Yep. I saw it and went to return inside and my father noticed me. There was no time to talk about it. When everyone was gone I told him we were talking about it at home. He told me we weren’t.”

“I’m sure you didn’t like hearing that.”

“No,” he said. “But I came home and wouldn’t leave until he showed up. He knew I meant business. We said a bunch more words. He tried to make excuses that I didn’t know what it was like. And my mother wasn’t a wife for months and he needed a break.”

“That is pissing me off for you.”

Kelsey couldn’t imagine her father ever doing anything like that. He wouldn’t leave her mother’s side for more than it took for necessary things.

“I had him up by the shirt front, told him what a piece of shit he was. He threw a bunch of words in my face about being a Mama’s boy and a wuss.”

“I’d hardly say that,” she said.

“You don’t know me like you think you do,” he said.

She angled her head. “I think you loved your mother very much. I think she loved you and the two of you were a team. You probably were a Mama’s boy, but it didn’t make you a wuss.”

“I won’t argue that. My father hated how close my mother and I were. I wonder if my grandfather knew we were close.”

“It’s possible,” she said. “If Barry thought you were a dick like your father he might not have left anything to you. Not the man I know.”

“See, you know more about him than me,” he said.

“Not as much as I wish. But he didn’t suffer fools lightly. Or maybe he was a fool for what he did and hated it and wanted to make it right.”

“Do you know what he did?” he asked. “Why he and my mother never talked again?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. Again, I’m sure my father does. Or maybe it’s in all those envelopes.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“What’s the other thing that you think your father did that you aren’t sure about?” she asked.

“My grandfather didn’t go to the funeral,” he said.

“You told me this. That you felt he did that on purpose, but I know Barry didn’t know she died for a long time after.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think my father didn’t do the one thing my mother asked him on her deathbed. And it kills me that she put that request in his hands and not mine.”

Kelsey put her wine down and moved over to hug him. “Don’t think that,” she said. “You don’t have all the answers. You don’t know why things happened the way they did. Maybe your mother didn’t think you were the right person to do it? Maybe your mother wasn’t thinking straight toward the end.”

“It’s probably a combination of those things,” he said. “I try to tell myself that. But my mother’s friend said she offered to do it and my mother was insistent that my father do it. I just don’t know why.”

“And you may never find out,” she said. “What you have to do is try to learn to live with what you do know. Do you think you can do that?”

“I don’t know that either,” he said, hugging her tight for a moment and then releasing her and walking away to get Frankie who had started to sniff around other rooms.

Guess they were done talking about this.

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